Stanford Graduate's Union urges an end to the University's complicity in violence, and divest from companies profiting from the global arms trade!
Stanford Graduate's Union urges an end to the University's complicity in violence, and divest from companies profiting from the global arms trade!
STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINIAN TRADE UNIONS
The following is an official SGWU-UE statement in solidarity with Palestinian Trade Unions written by SGWU members. It was ratified by majority vote by our membership on November 2, 2023. Members were able to cast their vote between October 25, 2023 through November 1, 2023.
We, the Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU), call on our employer, Stanford University, to condemn the ongoing and intensifying mass ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, as well as the apartheid system and the illegal occupation under which the Palestinian people live. We also acknowledge that our employer, Stanford University, both invests in and accepts funding from corporations that are complicit in and directly responsible for the global arms trade. We urge Stanford to immediately divest from Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Caterpillar, Boeing, and all companies complicit in and responsible for deadly violence against marginalized peoples in Palestine and across the world.
According to the University's founding grant, the purposes of our institution are "to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization, teaching the blessings of liberty regulated by law, and inculcating love and reverence for the great principles of government as derived from the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." These principles are fundamentally incompatible with the “illegal occupation" of Palestinian territory, a term used by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian territory; "mass ethnic cleansing", a term used by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine; "a system of apartheid", a term used by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch; and, finally, the war crime under international law of "collective punishment", a term used by a group of United Nations independent experts to describe the Israeli government's air strikes on Gaza, which have killed more than 5,000 Palestinian people in the last two weeks alone.
In an October 11 message to the campus community, Stanford President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez rightfully condemned the war crimes by Hamas that ended in the deaths of more than 1,400 Israeli people and the kidnapping of more than 200 Israeli people on October 7. Without a similarly unequivocal condemnation of the crimes against humanity that have long been unfolding in occupied Palestine, and without divestment from the companies complicit for these crimes, Stanford's administration fails its founding grant, its promise of "university neutrality", and its campus community.
We, the members of SGWU, make this call in the spirit of building a culture at Stanford of principled support for international human rights, rigorous and thoughtful discourse, a commitment to resisting oppression in all its forms, and an understanding that the fights against antisemitism, Islamophobia, and the dehumanization of Arab people are interconnected and inseparable. SGWU is in solidarity with the Palestinian Trade Unions, which have called on "all people of conscience to end all forms of complicity with Israel's crimes." SGWU stands against the illegal occupation of Palestine, the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people, and the apartheid system under which Palestinian people live, and we urge our employer to do the same.
STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINIAN TRADE UNIONS
The following is an official SGWU-UE statement in solidarity with Palestinian Trade Unions written by SGWU members. It was ratified by majority vote by our membership on November 2, 2023. Members were able to cast their vote between October 25, 2023 through November 1, 2023.
We, the Stanford Graduate Workers Union (SGWU), call on our employer, Stanford University, to condemn the ongoing and intensifying mass ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, as well as the apartheid system and the illegal occupation under which the Palestinian people live. We also acknowledge that our employer, Stanford University, both invests in and accepts funding from corporations that are complicit in and directly responsible for the global arms trade. We urge Stanford to immediately divest from Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Caterpillar, Boeing, and all companies complicit in and responsible for deadly violence against marginalized peoples in Palestine and across the world.
According to the University's founding grant, the purposes of our institution are "to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization, teaching the blessings of liberty regulated by law, and inculcating love and reverence for the great principles of government as derived from the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." These principles are fundamentally incompatible with the “illegal occupation" of Palestinian territory, a term used by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian territory; "mass ethnic cleansing", a term used by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine; "a system of apartheid", a term used by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch; and, finally, the war crime under international law of "collective punishment", a term used by a group of United Nations independent experts to describe the Israeli government's air strikes on Gaza, which have killed more than 5,000 Palestinian people in the last two weeks alone.
In an October 11 message to the campus community, Stanford President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez rightfully condemned the war crimes by Hamas that ended in the deaths of more than 1,400 Israeli people and the kidnapping of more than 200 Israeli people on October 7. Without a similarly unequivocal condemnation of the crimes against humanity that have long been unfolding in occupied Palestine, and without divestment from the companies complicit for these crimes, Stanford's administration fails its founding grant, its promise of "university neutrality", and its campus community.
We, the members of SGWU, make this call in the spirit of building a culture at Stanford of principled support for international human rights, rigorous and thoughtful discourse, a commitment to resisting oppression in all its forms, and an understanding that the fights against antisemitism, Islamophobia, and the dehumanization of Arab people are interconnected and inseparable. SGWU is in solidarity with the Palestinian Trade Unions, which have called on "all people of conscience to end all forms of complicity with Israel's crimes." SGWU stands against the illegal occupation of Palestine, the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people, and the apartheid system under which Palestinian people live, and we urge our employer to do the same.